I learned yesterday from a judge-recruiting e-mail that the South Dakota High School Activities Association is moving all of its fall speech activities online. Students will perform all of their speeches remotely, either submitting recorded speeches or live-streaming to judges and spectators.
Some of the kids I coached in speech activities preferred small audiences. Some, like me, said, the bigger the audience and the bigger the room, the better. We loved making finals and getting to perform in larger classrooms or auditoria, in front of dozens, or maybe, on rare, special occasions, like a humor final or the Readers Theater event at State Interp, a couple hundred students and parents. But no matter the size of the audience, all speakers understand the importance of connecting with an audience, using our voice, eyes, face, and body to convey our own message but also to invite and read the audience’s messages, their feedback, to gauge and adjust the effectiveness of our performance.
For most competitive speakers, speaking alone to a camera will be a let-down. Instead of suiting up and making a trip to exotic places like Milbank, Madison, Little Wound, and Watertown, pushing through a crowd of fellow well-dressed youth, and speaking out their hearts in front of competing students and imperious, inscrutable judges (or college students struggling to cogency on coffee #2), they’ll stand up in a hometown classroom and speak to a tiny gadget operated by a classmate or coach whose attention will be mostly on keeping the student in the frame. Those remote speakers will hear no laughter, see no rapt listeners, enjoy no applause at the end. They’ll just fire their speeches off into the ether and hope someone watching their glowing, boxed, and always smaller simulacra.
It’s hard to give a good speech to nobody. When I practice speeches, I always imagine an audience. I coach others to do the same: as you work on your lines, envision faces and practice looking at them. Imagine people in seats and practice moving among them, stepping closer and stepping back at key points of emphasis and transition. Even with the cameras on, giving a speech to an empty room still feels like practice, and practice never brings the same jolt as the real thing. To break that sense of letdown, speakers have to bring that envisioning of others from practice into their live on-camera performance. They have to be able to think beyond themselves and the physical space they occupy to envision the real people whom they can’t see or hear but who are out there, listening, watching, and, we hope, finding something in common with us, something useful, something inspiring in our words.
Think beyond yourself. Think about others. That’s an exercise in empathy.
Enter Joe Biden, finally, after 48 years in politics, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States of America. His warm-up acts spoke a lot about empathy. Biden, too, spoke of that other-orientation, that deep understanding of how others feel.
Joe Biden faced the problem of making a big speech in a room with no one watching last night. His nomination acceptance speech took place in a simple studio with American flags, a wooden podium, and no one else in sight. He had no one in the room to look at, no one to reach out to, no one to point at and exhort, just the signal light on the single camera that took his words and straight-ahead gaze to the nation.
Joe Biden did all right. (Read the full transcript at Rev.com.)
The current occupant of the White House (Biden used that phrase to describe his opponent) prefers large, roaring crowds whose emotions he can stoke with his improvised bullying. That schtick doesn’t play well, doesn’t gratify the bully’s impulses, in small rooms with reporters or alone in front of the camera. When forced to settle down and read prepared remarks, the current occupant of the White House delivers others’ words in bored, whining singsong, like a naughty child forced to listen to a scolding and recite an apology when he’d rather run back outside and return to throwing rocks at squirrels. In serious moments, he doesn’t speak as if he means or cares about the words coming from his mouth; he’s just going through motions that he doesn’t particularly like.
Biden showed no such let-down with the speaking opportunity afforded him last night. Biden spoke directly through the camera and into the hearts of all the people he envisioned listening. Biden’s tone and face and gestures showed that he understood, meant, and helped compose the words he said. More importantly, he showed that he wanted those words to connect with and lift up every person who was watching on the far ends of our electronic channels.
Another speech coaching note I give is to vary one’s tone, to highlight different ideas, feelings, and intentions. The current occupant of the White House always looks mad, but he never looks serious. The monotony of his presentation buries any distinct points and simply repeats his constant message of me, me, me. Joe Biden varied his tone throughout his speech last night. When Joe Biden looks mad, as when he spoke last night of Russian bounties on our soldiers and foreign interference in our elections, he looked really mad, and he looked entirely serious about kicking someone’s butt. When Joe Biden turns to talk about understanding “that deep black hole” of grief that sucks us in when we suffer loss, we know he’s speaking from his own experience and that he wants to help us learn from that experience and make our lives better. When he turns to Irish poet Seamus Heaney (a beautiful moment not replicated by the current occupant of the White House in his four-year White House Twitter-insult-fest) and invites us to “make hope and history rhyme with passion and purpose,” we know he’s serious, and we know he wants to help all of us and wants all of us to help.
Joe Biden spoke well last night. He showed he can stand before a camera in an empty room and connect with 320 million people whom he’s never met but whom he offers to serve. He showed the native empathy, the constant attention to the thoughts, feelings, dignity, and reality of others, that makes him a good speaker and a good leader.
Joe Biden offered a good lesson for all those young South Dakota speakers who may be disappointed at missing out on the chance to travel and speak at speech contests before real live audiences. It doesn’t matter whether your audience is in the room with you or hundreds of miles away. It matters that you think about that audience, think about the importance of connecting with that audience, and think about serving that audience by saying words that matter.
For the empathetic speaker, the audience is always present. We always carry our friends and neighbors and all the people counting on us in our hearts.
Look through the camera. Look out to the world, to all of your friends and neighbors. Show your empathy. Speak to them. Speak so they know you give a darn about them… and speak so they will give a darn, too.
Watching this great convention, I was struck by something amazing. Democrats prepare and work out the details to make stuff happen. Think of the logistics it has taken to produce this epic and it went without a hitch. Why is this important? This gives you the confidence that the Democrats will produce results in solving our issues right out of the chute. They will be looking for 8 when they pull the gate. Democrats are winners!!
Get ready to stomach the crap show coming next week and let me know, I might have to have a root canal which is more fun than that.
Thanks, Cory. That is great advice to all those high school students.
Yeah, I thought Biden did fine. I would have liked a little more meat on policy.
We’re Democrats. We always want more meat on policy. We know the Democrats we elect will focus on policy. But the purpose of last night’s speech was to grab the swayable voters by the heart and show them the primary difference between the candidates: Joe Biden gives a darn about them, while his opponent does not.
My 2 cents regarding Joe Biden and Super Genious are NOT HAVING A DEBATE Not a clown show. No good will come out of a debate. It will be a waste of time and energy.
Reinforcing my lament, ‘Janklow wired the schools . . .’so what”. It appears that SD did nothing with that initiative. Until, practically the COVID virus, state and local governments (and schools) frequently cancelled or postponed all sorts of meetings, gatherings, trainings due to ‘weather’ and similar silly reasons. If South Dakota an iota of leadership and vision it would have been a leader in dispersed school and government delivery.
Glance at Glenn here, directing the Democratic Convention from his home – barefoot, using a Walmart picnic table, and Costco chair. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ie5j12/glenn_weiss_who_directed_the_democratic_national/ Notice his Emmy Awards on the bookshelves.
The rapid adoption of dispersed learning, conventions, trainings, hiring, and working — enable TRAINED South Dakotans to virtually work in Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, John Deere, or anywhere. The world, post COVID, will bend a little back to in person interviews, hiring, and office jobs — but not whole scale. It’s less expensive for companies to use remote workers. Remote workers enable companies to hire from more talented and diverse pools.
Embrace the Forensic League’s striding into the 21st Century. The students will be far better prepared for adulthood than they would be wasting hundreds of hours in school buses and vans to give 3 to 15 minute speeches.
Don, come November there will be so much new policy just to plug the holes GOPhers chewed out. Attack on the virus and climate change are 1st. Read Vanita Gupta for a sample of bold new policies. There are dozens of these wise entities studying how to take back and hold onto all that we hold dear. IF we can walk away from the virus alive and IF tipping points do not sink the climate ship, people like your daughter you often describe will perform spectacularly in this new muscular administration. Every thing is on the table. EJ Dion has some good observations. We must keep corruption and money out of politics and government. Wish you were here! You certainly don’t need me to tell you. I am more idealistic and naive.
Striking article here: https://www.niskanencenter.org/what-democrats-can-learn-from-the-republicans-about-political-power/
Demos have better policies, run the economy better, nationally out-number the republicans — yet, don’t / can’t / won’t understand or do political power. Look around at your local newspaper (if you still have one). Listen to your local AM radio talk. Look at / listen to much of the abhorrent SD legislature.
Demos miss the boat hyper focusing on policy tinkering when a fraction of that energy would be better spent establishing political power. Where’s the Demos version of the Federalist Society? Of Sinclair Broadcasting? Of the American Legislative Exchange Council? Repubs generally govern poorly — but they understand and weld political power. They fight outnumbered and win. So, please, less “policy”; and more effort on political power.
Congrats to Clara — I give you a quarter for your thoughts! A “debate” between the President and Mr Biden will be nothing but a midway production and a waste of time. How can anyone working with the Democratic National Committee believe there might any positive result which might evolve from said “debate”? Pull your heads out DNC!
What is there to debate, the color of headstones for the 180,000 killed by negligence from trump and his virus? Maybe a debate on how to remember those pour souls in the mass graves from the trump virus. Maybe more appropriate would be a debate between the senate 2 and 3 in both the majority and minority on how the breakdown happened that the trump virus was ignored by the majority. That would be a much better debate.
https://newrepublic.com/article/158999/ocasio-cortez-trump-fascism-america?utm_content=buffer88be5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
John, point taken. We seen all GOP machinations before. Upton Sinclair. Larry Summers. Bill McKibben fossil fuels are toast. Loss of unions resulted in 1%. Money and power are GOP’s only hope. Bold policy on our horizon. Vanita Gupta. Win in November. Take the Senate. Fix the courts. Repair the constitution. GOP had 50 years. Now they are finished.
Leslie, thanks for the nod. The corporate policy wonk demos killed Universal Basic Income – twice after it passed the House of Representatives. President Nixon introduced it. UBI will eradicate poverty. Demos killed UBI because the Demo policy wonks wanted to argue about the amount. Good grief?1 Pass UBI. Then dicker and negotiate about the amount – eventually tying it to the CPI / cost of living increases. Demo policy wonks are too often too cute by half. Demos must establish political power. Winning one election over a hated, disrespected man is barely a start.
I admit Andrew Yang is, er, was, my candidate. He nailed policy better than anyone in generations. So. What. He fell far short on creating and establishing political power. Frankly, all the Demo primary candidates FAILED at establishing political power until Rep James Clyburn handed political power to Biden. Hand outs may win a primary — but will not pave the way to generations of progressive governance. Demos MUST establish political power.
Biden’s speech was passionate, especially at the end. He reminded me of a good coach who believes in the team and is urging them to believe in themselves, their abilities, their strengths, their skills. Coach believes the team can win. The team needs to be willing to lay it all out, give everything they’ve got, commit fully to the cause. Biden is telling the team, us Americans of good will, we’ve got this. Now let’s go do it.
I got tearful. I’ve so dearly wanted leadership that was hopeful of something better, that believed in a good USA. I’m ready to climb mountains if I have to, to enable November’s Massive Blue Tsunami!!!
POLICY:
@ClimateHome
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California Senator Harris, 55 and the first black woman chosen to run for vice-president, is an original sponsor of the US Green New Deal and has fought for climate justice, including holding oil and gas companies to account for their carbon emissions.